Finding rare arcade games is always a blast: Pop N Drive

Something odd caught my eye at the local Namco arcade. A driving game for kids …

When you're out and about in an arcade the last thing you expect to find is a rare Namco machine. Amazing what you bump into. I was lucky enough to find a Pop N Drive machine in a local arcade, and was more than a little surprised. Of course I crammed myself in there with Ivy and gave it a test drive.

The machine itself is an enclosed car, it looks almost like one of those rides you find outside of grocery stores. Once you get inside though, there's two screens above a steering wheel and two buttons. This thing is a video game, a very basic driving game for children. The main screen is small, but there's an animated head above it that reacts to how good/bad you're doing. The whole thing is in Japanese, I don't think there was any attempt to localize it.

When the game starts the machine rocks back and forth and you drive your animated car to avoid coconuts and jump over cracks in the road. You can honk your horn and scare the local critters as well. The game is of course very easy, but with a lot of animation and encouragement for the young players. Of course, that's only if they understand Japanese.

It was an interesting thing to find and play with, and Ivy had a blast. Not too often I get to involve her in writing for OT, but hey, it's not a job so much as it's an adventure. While I'm not the biggest fan of kids that young playing games, arcade machines mixed with rides could be very popular if anyone expands on the concept for a younger market.